


Left Behind

by citizen-of-the-multiverse (threenimonsongallifrey)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Doctor uses they/them pronouns, Gen, Romana is terrible at feelings yet again, can be read as shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 16:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30075222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threenimonsongallifrey/pseuds/citizen-of-the-multiverse
Summary: What does the Doctor do to the people they leave behind?Aka: a character study of Romana struggling with friendships between The Apocalypse Element and the early Gallifrey series
Relationships: Leela & Romana II
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> I made this mistake of listening to The Apocalypse Element and Neverland back to back and this is what happened... Sorry about the angst but also not sorry. Also this is mostly written in one sitting so apologies if there are any errors or anything. Features dialogue from the Apocalypse Element, Neverland, Zagreus, Lies, and Warfare.

When Romana returned from Etra Prime, she was broken. It was quite clear to see. Her form was emaciated. Her lips cracked. Her body mapped with scars. Her eyes were cold and distant, not at all the once President and once renegade she was. She couldn't remember the last time she smiled.

Romana knew others could see it too. In some ways she wished she didn't. She wished she could ignore the stares and the whispers. She wished she could remember what Before felt like. What it was like when her gait didn’t falter, when she could take a deep breath, when her hands didn’t tremble… when she was whole.

Back in E-space she burned like the brightest star. She got things done. She fought back armies. She built whole worlds. That energy carried to N-space, to Gallifrey. Romana didn’t falter, not once, during her presidential campaign. She spoke directly and with kindness and honesty. Her purpose was to create not just a new world, but a new universe, that was her destiny. She didn’t even have to try.

But like any star, she collapsed in on herself. The brightness soon faded, nay, disappeared. The Romana who created was gone and left behind the Romana who destroyed. For she herself was destroyed.

Oh, don't misunderstand. Romana did good. She tried. She wasn't malicious. But when she pushed back the Dalek threat from Gallifrey, hundreds of lives were taken. The planet of Archetryx was nearly gone but for a mere million survivors. An entire galaxy was burnt from the sky. A galaxy. It's fine and well to talk about it in the abstract. A galaxy is just a word, not even a number. But Romana _saw_ it. More than that, she let it burn. An entire galaxy, billions of billions of lives, were gone because Romana's mind couldn't hold the Apocalypse Element back. Because she wasn't strong enough. Seriphia would weigh heavily on her hearts in the years to come.

A part of her held out hope, the part of her that's always buried under layers of cynicism and doubt until a certain blue box appears. The Doctor would help, wouldn't they? They would make things right because that's what they did. The Doctor always makes things right.

Except…

Except when they don't see the way you hold your head in shame, when they don't hear the pain in every word, when they don't know how badly you want to scream at them to make things okay again… Except for when they don't care. They don't care anymore. They leave.

_"Doctor? You’re not leaving, surely. There’s so much to be done.”_

_“And I’m sure you’ll do it splendidly, Madame President."_

Madame President.

That isn't something a friend would say. They care that she's alive and uninjured and in a fit state to lead. They never ask if she's okay. They never ask if she's broken. They never ask what she went through during those dark twenty years.

Romana is a President now. Not a friend. She doesn't have friends. If she had friends they would be used against her. If she had friends, they would die. If she had friends, they would betray her. If she had friends, they would leave her.

Soon after the Doctor left, Romana fully assumed office again and pulled up a mask. If she ignored her pain long enough then it would be gone all the sooner. She practiced every step until it became routine and perfect. She would give a speech a dozen times over in a mirror until her voice didn’t falter and she looked like the leader Gallifrey deserved. The pain wasn’t there because Presidents don’t feel pain. She raised her head high and became determined to be strong. And she was. The President never lost her composure in front of her people.

And every night, Romana cried herself to sleep wishing that scars would heal with the smoothness of ice.

Long after Etra Prime, long after Romana recovered (because she had recovered. She had to recover. The President of Gallifrey could never be weak), she had met the Doctor again. As usual they complained and poked fun at the CIA and held onto their annoyingly dense set of morals. Romana agreed to an extent. But the President of Gallifrey did not. So she remained silent, watching the Doctor’s outrage as time itself fractured.

As the Doctor worried ceaselessly about their friend, as they refused to sacrifice one life for the universe, Romana shed a tear under the layers of ice disguised as duty. And she asked herself once more… where were they? Where were they when everything crumbled? Where were they when _she_ crumbled?

_“Doctor, one day you will fail to keep one of your promises and it will be a terrible shock to you when it happens.”_

It already happened though. They don’t see it. They never will see it. The Doctor lives in their fantasy world where they save the universe before teatime and they never pause to consider reality. To consider the pieces of the universe they already let break. Maybe it was easier that way. The Doctor could be the hero and those they break will clean up what’s left behind.

Charley was a nice girl, naive, but had a good heart. She still believed the Doctor was a hero. Romana didn’t want to stay around long enough to see her break as well. Because she would. She would get left behind too.

_"Enjoy your corruption, Romana."_

Corruption. Is that what they called it? Is that what they called trying to change things? Is that what they called staying behind? Romana didn’t have the luxury of being a hero anymore. Romana didn’t have the luxury of running away to another universe to escape her problems. Not again.

Her problems…

Who was it who caused those problems? Who was it who _corrupted_ her? Who broke her? Was it the Daleks over those twenty years? Or was it faith in a hero? Faith that everything would be fine, that things and people can be fixed and mended as easily as greasing a hinge.

When you ignore problems and turn a blind eye then it becomes easy to proclaim everything as evil. It was easy for the Doctor to condemn her as corrupt and immoral when she was the one doing the slow methodical work that kept the universe turning. But there could only be one hero to a story. The Doctor was a hero and Romana was… broken.

But that was okay. Broken just means more scars to stitch together. Romana just had to hide the scars as well. To pull up the mask once more.

Romana held her head high. She didn’t have friends. She didn’t have morals. She didn’t have feelings. The President only has duty.

When the Doctor left the universe for the last time, Romana couldn’t even find the time to cry that night.

_"I’m not allowed friends."_

She wasn’t allowed friends. K9 was her dog, not a friend. Braxiatel was her colleague, not a friend. Leela was… Leela was someone who would offer support. An asset. The President isn’t allowed friends. Friends are a liability. You can’t be friends with the people you are meant to protect.

And yet…

And yet Romana wants friends. She wants to trust someone, to hug someone, to have someone tell her everything will be alright, to have someone listen to her. To _her_. Not to the Lord President. The Lord President has no use for friends, but Romana does. She wished she could tell Braxiatel how she secretly still worries what the Doctor thought of her. She wished she could tell Leela how heavy the collar of office was and how she sometimes wishes she never became President at all. She wished she had that freedom. But she stayed behind. She was _corrupted_.

But dark days are coming to Gallifrey. And Romana must hang onto the Presidency with all her might, lest it be ripped away. If it is ripped away… well. No one would be free again. Least of all those never-could-be friends.

_“I thought I didn’t have any friends. I can’t afford to, especially not in war time.”_

_“You are wrong, that is when you need them more than ever.”_

Was she wrong? Pandora scared her more than Romana was willing to admit. Pandora was the version of Romana that she could never let herself become. Pandora didn’t have friends either. Pandora was isolated for so long, focused only on her own ambition, kept away in the dark parts of the Matrix.

Just like Romana in a way. Wrapped in layers of duty so thick that she was numb to others.

But was she? Because when you were numb, it didn’t hurt. And Romana knew the dull pain of guilt and regret all too well.

When Romana looked at Leela, she saw her mistakes reflected back. Romana had killed her husband. Romana ordered her to plant a bomb that took her sight. But Leela remained.

In the small hours of the morning, when Romana wanted to cry and the President couldn’t, Leela would take her hand and say it was okay.

While the Lord President busied herself with reviewing strategies for the next day’s battle, Leela would remind Romana to eat and sleep.

Leela, blind though she was, was the only one to see _Romana_. And Romana was not Leela’s President or Imperiatrix or Commander. She was her friend.

And after the last battle, as Romana lay drifting between waking and dreaming, stripped of her titles, Leela did not leave her side.

She didn’t leave.

She _didn’t leave._

**Author's Note:**

> I have a bit more of this written for various points through the Gallifrey series, but I felt like this was a pretty natural stopping point. I might be back to add more though...


End file.
